Church and to destroy the variety of its unity. Any declarations, such as have issued again and again in past discussions from leading men among the clergy-that all doubt must be stifled, that all who take part in critical enquiry must be repressed—that we must keep in the old paths, that the development of religious opinions on doctrinal truths must be denied—these, if they could be enforced on the laity and clergy, would soon make the Church into a narrow and bigoted sect, isolated-uniform but devoid of unity.

And could such be the meaning of the late Judgment, and were it, as such, to form a precedent, it would soon make a Church formed on the model of the Chinese nation, existing in a paradise of peace if you like, but quietly dying like China of prolonged infancy. We prefer a Church, existing, like Europe, in a state of political life; torn, if you choose to say so, with theological disputes, with hundreds of ideas in conflict; but still, like Europe, full of life, of belief in the future, of intellectual movement and spiritual fervour; preserving in its midst an inner unity, and working that out by means of the differences which seem to deny it.

In such a Church new ideas will meet with fair play; new forms of opinion, new methods of explaining the fixed doctrines, new forms of ritual will be freely investigated and tried. Free discussion will eliminate what is evil in them and retain what is good. If they are doctrinally possible in any sense, the Church will gladly embody them, that, by a greater variety of thoughts and of operation, its unity may be more richly developed. It may be that the forms under which certain true ideas have been represented will pass away, but they will only do so when the ideas themselves have been absorbed into the Being of the Church. Nothing necessary or noble will really be lost.

With regard to the body in the Church which repr sents, or ought to represent, the religious thought of the nation, the body of clergy. They ought to be in idea the spiritual parliament of the people. But as the representatives of the nation are bound to restrict their political opinions within certain constitutional limits of the greatest breadth consistent with the preservation of the State as it exists, so the clergy with regard to the Church and its requirements.

On the whole, they represent more largely than one would think possible the various phases of Christian thought in England. They are, for the most part, up to and in many instances beyond the general level of culture. They are educated men, and they move in all classes of society from the highest to the lowest. They stand as mediators between the rich and poor, and receive into themselves the ideas of both of these classes. Some of them belong, by right of their connection with the State, to the aristocracy; others to the middle class, and others to the democratic element. They are able as such to represent religious ideas as they are influenced by political systems of thought. Again, they feel as representatives of a national Church that all within the range of their several districts-no matter what and who those are dissenters, non-churchgoers, infidels-are their responsibility, and are given to their spiritual care by the nation. Hence they are in idea, not ministers of a denomination but ministers of humanity. Their sphere of work is not a congregation but a nation.

I believe that the national parliament and the body of national clergy ought to be analogous on most points. The spiritual parliament ought to represent every religious tendency in the nation which is not diametrically in violation of

the charter of the Church; and that charter ought to be kept as open and elastic as possible. The Church ought to demand agreement in certain fundamental doctrines, but not to define the way in which those doctrines must be held; to tolerate every form of opinion on those doctrines which does not absolutely contradict them in a sense to be determined by the law; nay more, not only to tolerate but to desire such expression if it represent any phase of English religious thought; to listen to it, though it seem to ninetenths of the members of the Church absurd and heretical; to encourage debate on every new view, and to remember that the only unmixt evil is arbitrary restriction of opinion. For if the clergy of the national Church do not represent all the religious ideas of its children, within the most extensive limits consistent with its existence, it is no longer national. Its representation requires remodelling.

This is the true idea of the Church of England, an idea which very few seem to understand. This is the idea on which the liberal clergy base their position in the Church, and which they strive to push forward and support. Many attempts have been made of late years to narrow this conception and to overthrow it, but, thanks to our union with the State, they have failed. First came the Gorham case. Suppose the Judgment in that case had gone the other way, every conscientious clergyman holding strong Evangelical views would have left the Church. Could that have been a national Church in which the vast body of the Evangelical School with all its phases was unrepresented? We, on the contrary, retained them all. Then came the famous Judgment about Essays and Reviews. Suppose that Judgment had gone the other way; every conscientious clergyman holding Broad Church

views would have found his position in the Church untenable. Should they all have gone, what would have become of the representation of a large and increasing body of religious thinkers? It was wisely determined to retain them all. So far our progress to the establishing of a true idea of a Church has been steady. Quietly-soberly-the State has met the feverish excitement of ecclesiastical blindness, and said, 'No! I will not permit my Church to become a sect. I will have, as far as possible, representatives among my clergy of all my national religious thought: I will have variety—not uniformity. Try to live together without quarrelling; fall back on primal principles; differ in ceremonies, in opinions, but agree in spirit and work for one end-the making of my nation better.'

The consequence is that they do work together on the whole remarkably well, in spite of the apparent violence of theological discussion. There is no body of men more united than the body of English clergy. There is a religious esprit de corps among them, which is of incalculable value to the cause of Christ, and which has a most radical influence for good on the inward as well as on the social life of the nation. Destroy the connection of the State with the Church and all that vanishes at once. All the several parties begin quarrelling, and split up into sects. The clergy cease to represent the sections, classes, and modes of religious thought within one living organism; and represent them only in sections, which have no inner bond of union and are set in opposition one to another. Divide us from the State, is now the cry of some. We know pretty well what would be the result of that. A clerical court of appeal would be established; we should have rigid limits laid down, and all possibility of com

prehension would be overthrown. The idea of a true Church as I have ventured to sketch it—of a true unity in a Church— of a truly national spiritual parliament of clergy representing all the Christian thought of the nation-would be scattered to the winds, and we should have left behind, instead of the idea and the effort to attain it, the fact of a meagre, powerless, limited sect of Episcopalians with either a bigoted charter or a charter as colourless as the Encyclical of the Synod at Lambeth. I hope that day may be long protracted; I hope. we may still endeavour to manifest to the world, and that more and more, the true idea of a Church-unity in variety, comprehensiveness with individual freedom.

This was the work of the Judicial Committee, and for it we owe them great gratitude. But it is now a serious question how far they have retreated on their path. I cannot but feel strongly that the Purchas Judgment is not in the interests of a comprehensive Church, and I am glad that there is a chance of its being reheard. It would be a fatal blow to the comprehensiveness of the Church if the Ritualists were forced to separate from it, and I should feel that the idea of the Church had received its death-blow. Should we drive out the Ritualists, we separate from the Church a body of clergy who represent a much larger variety of religious thought in England than is, I believe, suspected. Disagreeing as I do with the main principles of the movement, I feel strongly that we should lose very much which will hereafter be valuable, if we refuse to let it develop itself freely within the Church. There is that at the root of their sacramental theory which I wish were more earnestly looked into, and which will, as time and discussion free it of its error, come forth as an important truth, only in a form which will probably astonish the